


What Gets Lost in Translation

by beluzita24



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, translator AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 15:43:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13126782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beluzita24/pseuds/beluzita24
Summary: Hawke is the new translator in the Tethras Brother Company, actually, everyone else is also a translator in this story. Modern AU of the characters from DA2.





	What Gets Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

> A while back I read a prompt about taking your fandom to work and this has been in my desk for over a year now. Imagining all the characters as translator/interpreters was so much fun for me. I hope you enjoy it and have fun!

The first alarm rang. She looked at the side and barely opened her eyes, 5:30 was flashing in red digital letters. It’s been a while since the last time she woke up that early, since she graduated she’s been unemployed or doing freelance jobs which meant that she had a very flexible schedule or, as her siblings liked to say, a very fucked up schedule because of her shitty time management skills. She closed her eyes tightly, maybe she could sleep five more minutes before the second alarm rang. But it was too late, dammit Garrett, she thought, she heard the door opening slowly and later a movement in her bed, just before she could cover herself with the sheets again a big and drooling tongue was licking her face.  
“Stop it boy, stop it!” she managed to said in between laughs. “I’m awake!, see I’m awake” she rose from the bed. Back when they adopted Carver and they were still living together, before Garrett took that stupid job as interpreter in the UN, she actually was happy for him, he was the happiest she’d seen him in a long time, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t missed him like crazy; Garrett would always wake up earlier than her, so he trained Carv to come to bed after her alarm rang and tickle Hawke awake. She tried to teach him not to chew on her shoes, not to drink water from the toilet, not to bite “real” Carver’s toes when he came visit, yet he never learnt any of that, but waking her up? that he never forgot.  
She went to the kitchen in the dark without hitting anything and turned the coffee machine on, she needed that if she wanted to be fresh for this new job and she needed the job, desperately if she wanted her mom to stop making every family dinner feel like an intervention for her nearly homeless daughter, her words. Going back to her room, she took off her sleeping shirt and threw it to the dirty clothes pile on the chair in the corner, it fell to the floor but she didn’t care to pick it up, she dropped her underwear in the bathroom floor and got into the shower. She heard the phone ringing in the kitchen, that had to be Garrett, he was as excited as she was about this new job at Tethras Brothers, she’d return the call after the shower, unless it was her mother or her sister, although she doubted it was Beth, she hadn’t heard from her since the failed interview. Bethany worked at this translation company called The Circle, it was a very controversial company, translators either loved it or hated it, there wasn’t and in between, her sister was happy there, she got very little pay but she enjoyed the work. Hawke? she preferred being unemployed than working there. Bethany got her an interview, in order to help her get a job, Hawke felt Leandra’s hand meddling there, but Hawke never showed up, she didn’t bother to cancel, Beth was infuriated that night, she could be as scary as Leandra sometimes but Hawke was never afraid of her mother, she wouldn’t let Bethany get the best of her. Still, she felt guilty, she knew Beth meant well, she didn’t know why she didn’t showed up at least, this kind of shitty behaviour was typical of her, This is why we can’t have nice things Garrett would say all the time, she knew she had gotten worse since her brother left. So she and Beth weren’t talking for now, off course Leandra took Beth’s side so Hawke was avoiding her mother too; Garrett took her side and told them that she was old enough to make her own choices; Carver didn’t take a side, or so he claimed, but he texted her everyday asking her silly things, she knew it was an excuse to check on her maybe influenced by Leandra too, but she wasn’t sure of this.  
She had a quick shower, growing up in a house with six people in the house you had to shower fast, old habits die hard. Wrapped with the towel she grabbed her cup of coffee and went to her room to change, Carv was sleeping soundly on her bed the traitor. She wanted to look professional but not too Executive Secretary, she still remembers the time she overheard a couple of students from other disciplines calling translators ‘Executive secretaries’ because they were too fancy and snobs, at first she got angry about that comment, she wasn’t any of that, then she met some of her classmates and she understood what those people were talking about. She liked translating, she didn’t like translators, and this was the number one reason she was afraid of this job and having to interact with people.  
She liked Varric, the one who interviewed her, he seemed cool and she was pleasantly surprised when she found out he was one of the owners of the company and its literary translator. He talked non stop and he made her feel comfortable during the interview despite her inexperience, he gave her a homey feeling, a feeling she didn’t want to dive into, she shook her head, don’t count your chickens before they hatched her father used to say.  
She looked for her black pants, but she couldn’t find them, she looked at the dirty clothes pile and there were all her black pants shit. “I really do need to do the laundry” she muttered as she kept on looking for something until, unexpectedly, she found a skirt. Her mother and sister gave her that for her birthday but she didn’t use skirts, she knew she wouldn’t be really comfortable, but even the skirt was better than a pair of old jeans for her first day of work. She put that on with a red blouse she liked, did her make-up and checked her phone, she had two missed calls one from Garret, one from her mother and three texts, why was all her family awake before 7 am a monday? She opened her first text:  
Beth: Good luck on your first day! *emoji throwing a kiss*  
Immediately followed by:  
Beth I’m still mad at you *angry face emoji*  
The last text was from Carver:  
Carver: Sis can you check if i left my sweater there last time I was there? Can’t find it anywhere. Btw did you start working today? Or was it last week? Good luck anyway.  
Carver was so bad at pretending he didn’t care, that made her love him more. He was always looking after her even though Garrett and Hawke were always bothering him.  
After Garrett left to follow his dream she had a really hard time, it was the first time that she was living on her own, and Carver came to see her every day, he helped her do the laundry, he fed her, he took care of her until she was able to take care of herself. He was always grumpy and he complained the whole time, but whenever Hawke said something like: I didn’t ask you to come here, he would say: it’s me or mom.  
She called Garrett while waiting for the bus and arranged to pick him up from the airport on Friday when he came back from Rivain and made a mental note to invite Beth and Carver to have dinner with them. He didn’t say if he was coming alone or with Malcolm, that conflicted their mom, on the one hand she really wanted to meet Garrett’s husband, he didn’t bring him the last time he came, but on the other hand she was still hurt that they married in secret in a small town in Antiva. Hawke understood when Garret apologized, but she was still a bit hurt. She only texted her mother, because the last thing she needed was an argument with her before work, she was too nervous for that, she’d call her later. She was in the bus and she got another text:  
Unknown number: Don’t get inside until I got there! Wait for me outside.  
Hawke: Who’s this?  
Unknown number: -Your very own saviour, see you there Hawke and I mean it, don’t get inside without me!  
Attached to the text there was a picture, a selfie of a gorgeous brunette showing too much cleavage, the hell was that?.  
She arrived at the company’s door five minutes to eight, she stayed there waiting after fifteen minutes she decided to go inside she didn’t want to make a bad impression in the office during her first day. When she saw the secretary in the lobby, who had a standoffish look on her face, a little voice in her head kept telling her to stop and wait for the woman in the message to arrive, but she was just going to say hello and ask her where was her cubicle, suddenly a hand grabbed her from behind.  
“Do you have a deathwish, Hawke?” a sultry voice that matched perfectly the brunette from the picture, Hawke turned around and look at her flustered.  
“Wha…” but Isabela shushed her putting a finger on Hawke’s lips and whispered “Wait a second” then winked a her. Hawke looked again at the girl with the impassive face in the front desk. Suddenly the coffee guy approached her with a sweet smile on his face, she is going to kill him Hawke thought, but at the same time the girl’s expression changed dramatically, she smiled back at him and her cheeks reddened making it impossible to see her freckles anymore. Hawke couldn’t hear what they were talking about but after he waved goodbye the girl’s expression softened.  
“Well done Donnic” Isabela said more to herself than to Hawke, then she looked at her and said: “Welcome to Tethras Brothers, I’m Isabela, Legal interpreter and your guide today.”  
“H.. Hi… I mean Hello I am Lucy Hawke, but everyone calls me just Hawke.”  
“So you are the new translator Varric hired, he said you had great potential,” she started to walk inside moving her hips as much as she could, lots of men and women turned their heads to watch her pass, as Hawke would realize later, some would only be there to watch her get inside the building. Isabela seemed to know people were staring at her because she didn’t hide the smirk on her face.  
“Good morning Ave, how are you this fine morning?” Isabela said cheerfully, Aveline’s expression hardened a bit.  
“Good morning Isabela.”  
“This is Hawke, she’s the fresh meat Varric told us last week.”  
Averline’s expression hardened more now, she looked at Hawke with steely eyes for a minute and finally stated:  
“I’m not your secretary, I don’t take your calls, I don’t make your copies and above all I do not make your coffee, is that clear?” Hawke didn’t seem to understand what Aveline was talking about so she looked at Isabela, then at Aveline and muttered:  
“Oh , yes of.. Of course serah.” Aveline nodded and went back to her computer and kept working while drinking her coffee with half a smile on her face. Hawke and Isabela walked away in silence and finally Isabela told her:

“Don’t worry, she is nice, as long as you let her have her coffee in the morning and you don’t ask her for coffee you’ll be fine.”  
“Good to know.”  
Walking with Isabela made Hawke relax a bit, Isabela made her feel comfortable, she liked the way she greeted everyone as if she knew them all. For a moment Hawke forgot she was at her new job, it felt more like hanging out with a friend.  
“Let’s go to the kitchen, do you know how to make coffee?” Isabela’s voice brought her back to reality.  
“What? Yes, yes I need coffee to work” Hawke smiled at her. “Do you want me to make some…”  
“Oh! No, let me make you coffee today, just for today” suddenly she looked around and cleared her throat, then said: “Oh! I’d love to have a fresh made cup of coffee right now.” She put her hand on her forehead and stayed in that dramatic pose for a couple of seconds. Was she for real? Hawke saw at least two people stand up and head towards the kitchen. A voice came from there saying:  
“You are unbelievable Bela, I just made fresh coffee, no need to trick people into doing it for you.” They entered the room and the smell of fresh coffee filled Hawke, inside there was a rather tall skinny blond guy, whose hair was barely tied in a messy half bun, he was shaking his head when they saw him, he looked tired.  
“You slept here again Anders?” Isabela asked pouring some coffee for herself and Hawke, who noticed that she was looking at a closed door.  
“I had to finish some translations Varric gave me last week.”  
“Do you have a life Anders?”  
“Really funny Isabela,” he then turned his head to Hawke and smiled at her, “you must be Hawke, funny thing, I remember meeting a Hawke before, but taller and with a prominent beard.”  
“Oh! That must be my brother he’s been working in the UN for 2 years now.”  
“You have a brother Hawke? Does he have the same… bone structure as you?” Isabela now looked interested.  
“Two brothers and a sister, Garrett, Bethany and Carver. Never a dull moment at home”  
“How tall was he? Like 1,85? ...and buffed?” Anders interjected.  
“Mmm I’m eager to meet them then.”  
“Nope.”  
“But…”  
“Not a chance.”  
Isabela pouted a little, looked again at the door across the hall, and then said:  
“ Can I leave her with you for a sec? I’m going to check on Fenris”  
“Yes, but he just got in here, he didn’t even got his morning coffee, I wouldn’t…” She took Anders’ cup and walked away. Anders looked resigned and went to get another cup of coffee but the pot was empty.  
“Here, have mine, I’ve already had a coffee at home.” She handed him her coffee and turned to the coffee machine and started to clean the filter and then added more coffee. He took a sip and his face gain a bit of light. Hawke just looked at him trying not to disturb him, she liked to enjoy her coffee alone in the morning without people bothering her, she enjoyed her morning without people bothering her.  
“So you are from Ferelden?”  
“How did..?”  
“You have a pretty strong accent” he smiled, “I’m from Ferelden too, well I’m not from there, but I grew up there. I only came here a few years ago.”  
“Did you study in Denerim too?”  
“Calenhad” he said abruptly in a sharp tone her mother used sometimes, and Hawke knew she didn’t have to ask further. After an awkward silence Anders added:  
“Would you like me to finish the tour and show you the place you are going to work?”  
“Oh! It’s ok I bet Isabela must be back soon, I don’t want to bother you.”  
Suddenly she felt someone behind her, she turned around and saw a little small girl staring at her with big green eyes.  
“Hi?”  
“Hello, you must be Hawke. She is Hawke, isn’t she Anders?”  
“Yep Merrill” Anders said hiding his smile behind the coffee mug. Merrill kept looking at Hawke, who wasn’t sure of what was going on.  
“Do you like C.S.I.?” Merrill finally said.  
“No?”  
“Have you ever watched 1000 Ways to Die?”  
“Yeah, from time to time.”  
“What do you think of Queen Anora’s hats?”  
“Ugly?”  
“Do you prefer coffee over tea?”  
“I like coffee a bit more”  
Merrill frowned a bit but then smiled at Hawke and hugged her, longer than socially accepted, then she said:  
“We are going to be great friends! Welcome! Now I have to go finish some translations before Bartrand goes mad. I promised I would finish the coroner’s report for last Friday, but the dead guy won’t go anywhere, will he? Well no with both his feet shredded. It was pretty interesting, you know? Whenever you think you know in how many different ways human legs can break a new autopsy surprises you.” she kept talking almost to herself while she headed to her office, then looked back at Hawke and told her: “We can have lunch together later.”  
“Yeah, sure.” Hawke said out loud, and then to Anders: “was she sniffing me?”  
“Probably, and you don’t want to do that, unless you are on a diet” Anders seemed to be having fun.  
“Eat with her? Why?”  
“She is specialised in forensics and Oh Maker! does she love gore! The guy who was here before you threw up after his first lunch with her, and after that he avoided her until he left.”  
“It can’t be that bad. She seems nice.”  
“Oh! She is, she has her quirks, but don’t we all?”  
A minute after Merrill went away Isabela reappeared bringing with her a skinny white haired guy, he had a really hipster haircut: shaved at the sides and long in the middle he was also wearing big frame glasses. He seemed grumpy, but still walked behind Isabela without complaining.  
“Hawke this is Fenris. He is our expert anthropologist, he is the only one that speaks Qunlat and he works with all the shit we get from Tevinter ” Isabela said. Fenris waved at her and muttered Hello in a very deep voice Hawke that thought couldn’t belong to that tiny guy.  
“H… Hi, how are you?”  
“Fine” he said, then looked at Isabela, “can I go back?” Isabela rolled her eyes and nodded.  
“See you around.”  
“Good morning to you too” Anders whispered while finishing his coffee. He stretched his arms and back, and then looked at them and said: “well I have to go and finish my paper or Bartrand will be on my ass again, or worst: Aveline.” He then moved closer to Hawke and whispered: “If you come by my office around noon I can introduce you to the other member of the team. Now he’s sleeping”  
Hawke looked at him suspiciously and Isabela added:  
“You want to show her your dick? Isn’t it too early? even for me.”  
They laughed and Anders waved goodbye. After that they finished the tour, Varric welcomed her warmly and took her to her cubicle. It was a little desk near a window, with a computer on it. She spent the rest of the morning setting up her computer, installing apps and checking her email, until around midday she heard someone calling her, and when she looked up she saw Anders gesturing her to come to his office. She looked around to be sure he was talking to her and walked into his office, once there he said:  
“This is the final member of the group I want you to meet Hawke, I hereby introduce you to Sir-Pounce-a-Lot.” and he took a cat from a drawer while Hawke started laughing.  
“You have a cat in the office?”  
“Yep, the not so official pet, he lives here and on the weekend I take him home.”  
“Oh! So you are one of those cute guys who travel by bus with their cats?” Anders blushed a little, but said nothing.  
She got close to him and patted him on the head, which apparently was a mistake, the cat hissed and scratched Hawke’s face, she backed away quickly and anders pulled Sir-Pounce-a-Lot to him and put him in the floor.  
“Maker, I’m so SO sorry” he said getting closer Hawke.  
“It’s fine,” she said quietly, Anders seemed more upset than her, she touched the scratch in her face and saw how a drop of blood tinted her finger. Well that had to be a record, she got hurt the first day of work. From the corner she could see Anders wagging his finger towards the cat and frowning at him and muttering:  
“Bad… bad cat. I’m sorry Hawke. I should have told you he didn’t like that. Are you ok?” He looked at her bloody finger. “Damn…” he pressed his lips together, “Sit here” he pointed at his desk with a matter-of-fact tone that Hawke was so familiar with that she knew it was better not to complain. While he was digging into the first aid kit she had time to gaze at Anders, he looked tired, like he-could-sleep-an-entire-month tired, his back hunched as if he hadn’t slept in a bed in a long time. He grabbed some alcohol and some gauze, and got close to her, too close.  
“It’s not necessary, really” Hawke was a bit nervous, she wasn’t used to people getting this close, she could see clearly his pale skin which hadn’t seen the sun in a long time, now she wondered if Isabela wasn’t kidding when she said he slept there, was it something regular? His stubble grew straggly, she fought back the urge to run her fingers through his face to check if the skin was smooth as it looked. Her heart was beating a bit fast be cool Hawke, are you really that starved for human contact.?  
“I should’ve warn you he doesn’t like that. Bela used to pester him like that when he was little and he hated it. I’m sorry.” He looked at her in the eyes and she blushed a little.  
“It’s fine, I grew up in a farm. My twin and I were kind of… wild. And I was the one who always got hurt” she pursed her lips when she felt the alcohol in her cheek and now Anders was just a centimetre away biting his lower lip in concentration, she looked away and started babbling. “When we were 8 our neighbours dared us to climb the tallest tree in the farm, and we did it, when I was going down I fell and hit a metal wire, I got 4 stitches that time.”  
Anders smiled shaking his head a little, but kept on working, there wasn’t much to do, it was a superficial cut, but he took his job seriously.  
“When I was 11 I was playing with Garrett in an abandoned house and I stepped into a rusty nail, that awarded me a tetanus shot, by that time the people at the hospital were calling me by my first name”  
“A very entertaining childhood”.  
“My mother didn’t think so. Oh! and a winter evening when I was 18, we were cycling to a bar with my brother, he was driving it and the road was kind of frozen so the bike slipped and I fell, broke my two wrists. Garrett had to spoon feed me the rest of the winter.  
“How are you still alive?” he blurted.  
“I know right!?”  
“It’s done” he said putting a bandaid in the scratch. “Sorry it has to be a Hello Kitty one. Merryll was in charge of buying them the last time.”  
“Aww! You showed it to her? I wanted to see her face. Hawke! What happened to you?” Isabela looked at them suspiciously, Anders took a step back.  
“There was an accident with Ser-Pounce-a-Lot.”  
“I knew the cat was evil.”  
Behind her was the rest of the crew, Varric, Merrill, Fenris and even Aveline. They decided to have lunch at Ander’s office and Hawke didn’t feel pressured to talk to them, it felt natural. First she disgusted everyone talking to Merrill about some live autopsies she had to sub when she was desperate for money; then laughed at a joke Fenris made about Tevinter only she understood; she promised Anders she would take some old blankets she had to the shelter he volunteered on weekends; then she challenged Isabela to a drinking contest next time they went to the bar; and surprised Varric when she told him her mom was a big fan of his novels.  
All the phones rang at one moment or another, but they all ignored it.  
“Oh, whose turn was to invite Choir Boy this time?” Varric asked casually.  
“Anders” everyone said pointing at him at the same time.  
“You did it on purpose, didn’t you?.”  
“Did I forget?” he said flippantly taking a big bite of his sandwich.  
“You should be nicer to him, he is part of the crew” Varric said.  
“I am polite to him, most of the time.”  
“Who’s Choir Boy?” Hawke whispered to Isabela who smirked:  
“Sebastian, our religious translator, he used to work for The Circle, mostly for the Chantry branch” at the mention of this Anders frowned for a moment but said nothing, “but there was a fight with one of the guys there so he left and is now here, and he annoys people with how awesome the Chantry was and of course Anders hates him.”  
“I don’t hate him I just rather they hadn’t hired him” he shrugged.  
“I kinda get it though” Hawke said sympathizing with him, “my sister works for The Circle and I don’t like it, she got me a job interview there a couple of months ago and I didn’t even show up, I don’t like how they treat people there” She could feel Anders beaming at her.  
When lunch was over she went back to her desk and found a gift basket someone put without her noticing that had what it seemed to be a handmade pot, with a daisy in it; there were some soup coupons from Sandal’s Soup (An Enchantment in your mouth!); a bottle of wine; a signed copy of Hard in Hightown; a pair of golden earrings; and finally an a letter opener in the shape of a sword. She smiled, for the first time since Garrett left she felt that things could actually work out here, with this people, with this job, and hard as she tried not to think about it she couldn’t avoid feeling at home.  
She put the pot with the flower next to the picture of her family, it was taken just a couple of months before their father died, all of them smiling except Carver who was muttering something angrily to Garrett and Lucy, her parents were holding hands in a world of their own looking at each other, Beth looked so young and spirited.  
The afternoon flew by before she even noticed the time.  
Anders appeared around saying “It’s time to go Hawke, stop working. Come on, I’ll wait for you and we can leave together.” He started looking at the gifts they got for her and the things she brought.  
“Big family huh?” Anders said looking at her family picture.  
Hawke nodded.  
“Two pair of twins, first Garrett and I“ she pointed at her brother whose beard grew more and more prominent each year after that picture. “Then three years later my little siblings, Carver and Bethany, were born” though Carver was anything but little, even then.  
“I thought you said your dog’s name was Carver” Anders looked confused at her he rarely seemed to smile with his whole face. Hawke snorted:  
“Well they are both named Carver, when Garrett and I adopted our dog, we started calling him Carver, jokingly, to infuriate our brother, and mom too. But when we tried to change his name he wouldn’t respond to any other name but Carver,” Anders laughed and shook his head, “we really tried I swear” Hawke added sheepishly.  
They headed towards the exit talking quietly when someone approached them:  
“Anders” said a guy all dressed in white trying to make his voice sound deeper.  
“Sebastian” Anders greeted coldly.  
“You must be Lucianne“ Hawke’s face twitched a little, she hated that name, her parents were the only ones to use it and only when they were mad at her.  
“Lucy” she interrupted him.  
“...Lucianne” he repeated and kept talking in an uptight way as if he hadn’t been interrupted at all. “I’ve been meaning to introduce myself all day, but I guess we didn’t coincide. I’m Sebastian Vael, I work here a couple of cubicles from you. If you ever need something, please don’t hesitate to ask me, I’m at your disposal.” It looked as if he had been rehearsing that speech all day.  
“Thank you?” she said nervously, she couldn’t tell if he was messing with her, she shook his hand and he left. She looked at Anders who was shaking his head half amused half annoyed.  
“Well I guess now that you’ve met us all I can say welcome to Tethras Brothers!” he said smiling at her and making jazz hands.  
They walked to the bus stop together, chating, there was something in Anders that make it easy to talk to him and Hawke liked that. All the worries and anxiety she felt started to slowly fade away, surely tomorrow at 7:45 those feelings will be there again, but if she survived the first day she thought she was going to be just fine.


End file.
